Bochs is mostly used for operating system development (when an emulated operating system crashes, it does not crash the host operating system, so the emulated OS can be debugged) and to run other guest operating systems inside already running host operating systems. It can also be used to run older software – such as PC games – which will not run on non-compatible, or too fast computers.

Contents

Bochs started as a program with a commercial license, at the price of 25 USD, for use as-is. If a user needed to link it to other software, that user would have to negotiate a special license. That changed on 22 March 2000, when Mandrakesoft (now Mandriva) bought Bochs from lead-developer Kevin Lawton and released it for Linux under the GNU Lesser General Public License.[1]

Bochs emulates the hardware needed by PC operating systems, including hard drives, CD drives, and floppy drives. It doesn't provide any CPU virtualization features, therefore is slower compared to other virtualization solutions which do. On the other hand, it provides additional security by completely isolating the guest OS from the hardware. Bochs is widely used for OS developing, as it saves the need for constant system restarts (to test code). Bochs is also very helpful for Operating System development because of its extensive debugging features.

BFE makes it possible to debug software step-by-step at the instruction and register level, much like Borland's Turbo Debugger.